Jun. 18, 2013

Written by

Sports columnist

Rory McIlroy and Oak Hill club pro Craig Harmon walk together on the second fairway earlier this month during media day for the PGA Championship. / JAMIE GERMANO / Staff photographer

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Craig Harmon has received many honors recognizing his contributions to golf, including being named PGA Golf Professional of the Year in 2005.

The classy head pro at Oak Hill Country Club for the past 42 years believes teaching to be a higher calling — and it’s in his blood. Something his departed father, Claude, the 1948 Masters champion, passed down to his four sons, making the New Rochelle natives America’s First Family of teaching pros.

Now Harmon has been recognized for qualities that transcend sports, really, and have more to do with what makes a man a valuable asset to his community.

Sportsmanship. Character. Courage. Consistency. These things embody the recipients of the Major Don Holleder Award, named for the Aquinas and West Point football legend who was killed in action in Vietnam saving the lives of his comrades.

“Don Holleder is someone I’ve heard about all my life here in Rochester and I know what it means to be the recipient of the award, he was such a great man,” said Harmon, who was honored at Tuesday’s 64th annual Rochester Press-Radio Club’s Day of Champions Children’s Charity Dinner at the Riverside Convention Center. “It’s an honor to be even considered for it and to receive it is really something very special.”

With Oak Hill hosting the PGA Championship in August — it’s the eighth significant golf tournament in his tenure with the famed club — this is a special time for Harmon, 67, and showing no signs of retiring. But then, when Oak Hill is your business address, every day is special.

“To this day when I drive in, I pinch myself that I’m pretty lucky to be the golf pro at Oak Hill Country Club,” Harmon said. “I don’t take anything for granted. This is a special place.”

Special enough to host three U.S. Opens, three PGA Championships and a Ryder Cup.

Of course, it’s been 24 years since the USGA has awarded Oak Hill a U.S. Open, adding to the debate that America’s shorter, traditional courses have been left behind by the modern game and its governing body.

But then along came Merion Golf Club, outside of Philadelphia, which hosted last weekend’s U.S. Open, its first in 32 years. Fears that the sub-7,000-yard course (6,996 yards to be exact) shoehorned into 100 acres would be too easy were never realized as nobody broke par for 72 holes and the winning score was 1-over by Englishman Justin Rose.

Mighty mite Merion and its wicker basket pin sticks making basket cases out of Tiger Woods (13-over) and Rory McIlroy (14-over) may just have been the best thing to happen to Oak Hill in the last decade, at least in terms of getting some in the USGA to broaden their view that longer doesn’t mean tougher.

Remember 2011? That’s the U.S. Open that Oak Hill, at around 7,150 yards, was rumored strongly to be getting only to be passed over for Congressional and its 7,574 yards. McIlroy won with a record 16-under score. Ooops.

Sure, Merion was tricked up with no first-cut rough and newly lengthened holes. But it may just have put some sanity back into the discussion. That a true test of golf means using all your clubs and demanding complete control of your golf ball, tee to cup.

“Some of the players may have said it was too ‘tricked up,’ that you had to hit iron off the tee and wedge and all of that. But everybody is playing the same course,” Harmon said. “At the end of the day it challenged them tremendously both physically and mentally, which is what a major championship is all about. I’m just a big fan of par being the standard of excellence, not 20-under par.”

Tee work renovation is being done at holes 17 and 18 at Oak Hill, but it will still measure out only about 150 yards longer than Merion. The modern standard is 7,400 to 7,600 yards “and we can’t go there,” Harmon said.

Still, tree-lined, slick-greened Oak Hill can boast that in five stroke play majors, only 10 players total have finished under par for the championship.

Since Oak Hill hosted the 1989 U.S. Open, seven clubs have been awarded the event multiple times: Three at Pebble Beach; Oakmont, Olympic, Bethpage, Congressional, Pinehurst and Shinnecock twice each. Pinehurst hosts again in 2014. Nothing to be ashamed of there. But shouldn’t Oak Hill be getting a better shake when it does bid?

Not landing the ’11 Open was an “extreme shock” to Oak Hill leaders, Harmon said. But in golf, all things run their course.

“It’s just the nature of the beast,” Harmon said. “The USGA only has good courses to choose from and their list is full of great venues. But I like it when they do go back to old courses that have held majors and you get to see what the test of time has done, and how players hold up now.”

As head pro at storied Oak Hill for 42 years, Craig Harmon has stood the test of time. He still gets chills driving up Chapin Way.